Joining the Hunt
by storyteller7891
Summary: Percy is looking forward to a relaxing fall break. But a visit from his cousin Thalia, daughter of Zeus, sends him on a hunt for a dangerous monster.
1. My Cousin Stops By

Joining the Hunt (Briefly): A Percy Jackson story

**Joining the Hunt (Briefly): A Percy Jackson story**

**My Cousin Stops By**

Don't let anyone fool you. High school is not all it's cracked up to be, especially when you're a freshman. Lots of homework, bottom of the social food chain, etc., really wears you down. Which is why I was sitting in a classroom at Goode on a Friday afternoon, staring at the clock, counting down the last few seconds before the bell rang, setting me free for fall break. It wasn't summer, but I looked forward to it all the same. I needed a break from school; I had far more important things to worry about.

When the bell rang, I was the first one out the door, tearing down the hallway, almost knocking over a couple of football players. One of them sneered at me, "Whatsa matter, Jackson, gotta sore mommy needs to kiss?"

I wanted to reach into my pocket, pull out Riptide and give this punk a piece of my mind. Unfortunately, it couldn't harm mortals, though I doubt Captain Testosterone here would've noticed. I ignored him and kept on going. I heard him yell behind me, "Yeah, run on home momma's boy!"

Once I was outside, I hailed a cab and went straight to my mom's Manhattan apartment. It was nice to be able to come home after school instead of going off to dormitory after classes. As I entered I called out, "Hey, Mom, I'm home. Any messages from camp?"

"Ah, not exactly, sweetheart," her voice called back from the kitchen.

"Not exactly? Meaning what did something happen?" I asked worried. I had asked Chiron to send my updates about the status quo of Camp Half-Blood, the summer camp where demigods, like me, went to train every summer. Last time I'd been there, we'd been invaded by an army of monsters that had nearly overwhelmed us, the first open battle of the new Titan war. Given everything that happened, I didn't want Chiron to leave me out of the loop.

"Come on in and I'll explain," my mom answered. She sounded tense, which made me all the more nervous. I walked into the kitchen and saw why.

My mom was sitting at the kitchen table, holding an icepack over someone's eye. It was a girl about my age, wearing tattered jeans and a torn silver jacket, revealing her punk rock t-shirt. She had cuts all over her face and her arm was in a makeshift sling. She forced a weak smile when she saw me. "Hey, Percy, how's it going?"

"Thalia?" I stared at her. A million questions flooded into my mind, but the one that came out was, "What happened to you?"

Thalia continued to smile painfully. "Isn't obvious? I need your help."

I looked at her, trying to decide if this was really Thalia. "My help? Seriously?"

"Yeah."

I chuckled. Thalia frowned at me. "What?"

"Nothing. It's just you're a daughter of Zeus and you're a Hunter of Artemis, and you turn to me for help. You must really be desperate."

"You have no idea." Thalia stood up. She winced and hunched over like she was about to puke. I ran over to her. My mom stood up and together we helped steady her.

"I'm fine," she insisted.

"Coulda fooled me," I told her.

"I should be healed by tomorrow," she grunted. "Hunters recover quickly. If I last till then."

"Why? What happened? Where are the other Hunters?"

Thalia stared at me with a grim look in her eye. "Scattered…some are dead. I got separated from the others when he attacked."

"When who attacked?"

Thalia coughed. "Lycaon. He attacked the Hunters but I was his target."

"Who the Hades is Lycaon?" I asked feeling dumb and in the dark, as usual.

"He was a king in Ancient Greece. A stranger came to his house and Lycaon served him a disgusting meal."

"Okay, but what does…"

"Let me finish. The meal was a child, whom Lycaon had had killed and cooked. But the guest he offered the meat to turned out to be Zeus."

"Oh…bad move."

Thalia nodded. "Zeus was furious. He cursed Lycaon and turned him into a beast, a wolf."

I raised my eyebrows. "A were-wolf? Your dad made a were-wolf? Weird."

"Yes, well unfortunately, Lycaon is back. He ceased to be human and became one of the monsters. He re-forms quickly, since mortals are always telling stories about were-wolves."

"And now he's back and after you, because of what your dad did to him."

"Yep. Pretty much."

"But how did you end up here?" my mom asked. I looked at her, a little embarrassed since I'd almost forgotten she was there, I had been focusing on Thalia.

"We were on the outskirts of New York when Lycaon found us in the middle of the night. Between Artemis and the other Hunters, he should've been killed quickly, but he took us by surprise. He wounded and maimed several of the other Hunters before coming after me. I tried to shoot him with my arrows but he was too strong and too fast. So I…ran…" she admitted with difficulty.

I felt a cold chill run down my back. Thalia once stood her ground against the Furies and an army of hellhounds. Lycaon had to be pretty terrible in order for her to flee.

"And Artemis?" I asked nervously. "Why didn't she blast him to dust for hurting her Hunters?"

Thalia looked uncomfortable. "Lycaon attacked her first. He hit her with something, I don't know what, but the instant he touched her she fell down and didn't get up again."

I gulped. Taking down Artemis was no easy task. Atlas had done it last year in a bid to stall the Olympian council, but he was a Titan and had an army to help him. Lycaon had done it single-handedly.

"So, will you help?" Thalia's blue eyes looked at me with desperation and fear, I look I hardly ever saw on her face.

It took a while to find my voice but I managed to say, "Of course I will. Come on. Let's go wolf hunting."


	2. I Fight A Werewolf Minus A Silver Bullet

**2. I Fight A Werewolf Minus a Silver Bullet  
**

I took the prism out of my drawer and opened the window. I held up the prism till the sunlight hit at just the right angle. A rainbow shot out and hit the corner of my bedroom. I grabbed my spare golden drachma, the one I kept in case of emergencies, and threw it into the stream of colors.

"Iris, goddess of the rainbow," I said, "accept my offering."

The rainbow shimmered.

"Show me Chiron," I requested. "At Camp-Half Blood."

I waited, expecting the image of my centaur teacher to appear. I was surprised when the rainbow actually spat my golden drachma back out. As it clanked on the floor, I heard a woman's voice say, "I'm sorry, but the person you've requested is unavailable at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience." Before I could respond, the rainbow itself disappeared.

"Great," I muttered. "So much for reinforcements."

I put down the prism and grabbed my jacket as I left the room. I went back into the kitchen where my mom and Thalia were packing a knapsack with supplies, bandages, snacks, etc. I had given Thalia my last ambrosia square so she had started healing; her arm was out of the sling. But the cuts on her face and back hadn't gone away yet. Lycaon must have handed her quite a beat-down.

Thalia looked at me. "What'd Chiron say?"

"He was unavailable."

She frowned. "Unavailable?"

I nodded. "Don't ask me why."

"So no help from Camp then?"

"Nope. Looks like we're on our own."

Thalia sighed. "Great."

My mom, ever trying to be the positive one, spoke up. "Well you're welcome to stay here, Thalia, till we can reach Chiron."

Thalia shook her head. "Thanks, but no thanks, Ms. Jackson. There's a good chance Lycaon followed me into Manhattan. My scent combined with Percy's would bring him straight here."

I stared at Thalia. She was right. With her being a daughter of Zeus and me being a son of Poseidon, thereby making us the two most powerful half-bloods on the planet, aside from Nico de Angelo, our scents would pretty much be a beacon for Lycaon or any other monster. As I thought about it, I wondered why my mom's apartment wasn't under attack already.

I clenched my fist. "We'd better go, _now._" I couldn't keep the anger out of my voice. I thought, _What if Lycaon had found Thalia before I got home? How could she put my mom in danger like that?_

I grabbed the knapsack off the table and made a beeline for the door. "You comin'?" I called to Thalia.

She regarded me. "Yeah. Thanks, Percy," she said bleakly. She knew I was in a bad mood but couldn't tell why.

Once we got to the street we hailed a cab. The driver was a pudgy dude with a mild accent. He reminded me a little of Dionysus, minus the pungent smell of wine.

"Where to?" he asked.

Thalia gave him the address of a park in New Jersey. We drove through the city for a while. I didn't talk to Thalia. I just stared out my window at the Empire State Building till I lost sight of it.

"Okay, I'll bite, what's wrong?" Thalia's voice jarred me from my thoughts.

"What?"

"What's wrong?" Thalia repeated. "You seemed pretty ticked back at your mom's place."

I glared at her. "Nothing," I muttered. "No big deal."

"Obviously not. Come on. I know you, Percy."

"Uh-huh."

"Look will you just tell me so we can fight about it, patch things up then go back to being friends like we always do."

_Okay, so she does know me_. I sighed. I was about to explain it to her when our cab suddenly screeched to a halt. Our cabby cursed as he slammed on the brakes.

"What's going on?" Thalia asked.

"Some kinda accident," he replied.

I rolled down my window. I could see several cars backed-up in front of us, a few with smoke coming out of the hoods. The drivers were standing around arguing with a police officer. They were shouting loud enough for me to catch

"I'm telling you, a big hairy whatever, just ran out into the road—

"Some nut in a costume—"

"—like a big dog—"

Big dog?

_Uh-oh. _I nudged Thalia. "We gotta go."

She frowned. "What? Why?"

Before I could answer her, I heard the loud _thud_ and the entire car shook. Two sets of claws pierced the roof of our cab then ripped it off like it was construction paper. The cabby screamed, leaped out of the driver's seat and took off.

.Lycaon stood at least seven feet tall. He was built like a man, but covered with matted silver-gray hair. He had long sharp claws where his fingers should have been. His head was that of a timber wolf, which snarled fiercely. His yellow eyes glowed at Thalia hungrily. He looked nothing like I'd expected him to. I figured he'd be like the wolf-man from those cheesy old horror movies, with an absurd amount of facial hair and obviously fake fangs. But one look at his mouth and I knew those canine teeth were real and could easily rip into my flesh like a knife through butter. The thing that seemed odd was that he was wearing a leather pouch, with the strap running sideways across his body, but I had bigger worries than that.

"Daughter of Zeus," he growled in a voice that barely sounded human. "How long did you think you could outrun me?"

Thalia stared at him with a mixture of horror and anger. Cautiously, she moved her hand towards her metal bracelet, while I reached into my pocket and grasped Riptide.

"What do you want, beast?" Thalia said in a tone that barely masked her fear.

I almost thought I could see a smile on Lycaon's face. "Revenge, of course."

He regarded me for the first time. "Well, well, well. Perseus Jackson, the son of Poseidon. Another child of the three sons of Kronos who shouldn't exist. No wonder the scent was so strong." He licked his muzzle with his blood red tongue. "This will be tasty meal indeed."

"Just try it, Scooby. You'll make a nice rug, I'm sure."

Instead of replying with another quip, Lycaon lunged swiping his massive claws at our heads. Thalia and I opened our doors and rolled out of the taxi. As I landed on the street I could hear mortals all around me shouting and scrambling to get away. I stood up and uncapped Riptide. The bronze blade extended and I swung at the roof of the taxi.

Lycaon anticipated my attack. He leaped up so my blade hit nothing but air. He landed on the hood of the taxi. Thalia had Aegis and her spear extended and jabbed at him but he grabbed the spear out of her hand and delivered a strong kick to her shield, sending her flying. She slammed into the side of a van parked nearby.

Lycaon advanced on her. Thalia groaned and raised her shield. The sight of Medusa's face embossed on it should have made Wolf-Man whimper like a puppy, but it didn't faze him at all.

I jumped over the hood of the taxi. I came up on Lycaon from behind ready to slice him in half. He turned on me, grabbed my arm and twisted. I cried out in pain and dropped my sword. Lycaon's grip was like a metal vice. He spun and hurled me down the block like a javelin. I hit the side of a building then landed face first on the sidewalk. I started to get up but Lycaon pounced on me. He shoved my head to the ground with his heavy paw. He brought his face close to mine, baring his gleaming white teeth, leaning in for the kill.

"Prepare yourself for Hades, son of Poseidon."


End file.
